CinemaSerf

Romain Duris turns in a creditable enough performance but otherwise this is a rather lacklustre mix of romance and engineering that veers way too much to the former than the latter. The narrative tries to run the twin threads of his younger years - where he builds a bridge and falls in love with "Adrienne" (Emma Mackey) with a contemporary one that sees him bidding in a competition to design the Parisian entry for the 1889 World Fair. His plan to build a 300m tower wins - it beat the Mètro - but pretty quickly he faces industrial issues, strikes, banking confidence colly-wobbles and to add to his complications, he re-alights on "Adrienne", by now married to the influential "Antoine" (Pierre Deladonchamps). There are a few scenes - especially when they are laying the foundations to the tower and when aligning the metal works, when the engineering elements impress and we get some clue as to his genius. The use of sand, water and sheer brute force to ensure millimetre accuracy is sometimes quite tensely portrayed here. Unfortunately, though, for the most part it's a rather uninspiring melodrama about his turbulent relationship and though it does offer an interesting explanation as to why the tower might look like the letter "A", it all just sinks into a rather mediocre sediment of mush. The production looks good, the costumes and settings are well presented, but the rest of it is unremarkable and I found myself wondering why I thought he wasn't Maximillian Schell and she wasn't Margot Robbie. One for the telly, I'd say.